Gig review: GUN- The Cavern, Raynes Park, London, 14 April 2023

May 1st, 2023 by andynathan

Last year Gun’s revitalised career took a new twist when they revisited and reimagined songs from their past in acoustic fashion in ‘The Calton Songs’. The next step was to take the format on the road with an extensive tour. Though he has been assembling an impressive roster of name acts, it was still a coup for owner Noel Nevin to book them at his tiny bar in South west London, even though surprisingly it was just short of a sellout.

They brought with them a fellow Glaswegian Baz.M in support. In an unusual set up, he occasionally played a song with acoustic guitar but more often sang along to a full backing track off his laptop and in doing so pulled the full range of expressions as if he were playing an arena. Once I had got over my shock I really enjoyed a very personal set of original songs about his chequered life, notably opener ‘Whipping Boy’, ‘Evil Twin’, the title track from a forthcoming album ‘Split’ and closer ‘Animal’. Strangely enough his vocal delivery reminded me very much of original Gun singer Mark Rankin.

Originally billed as an acoustic evening with the Gizzi brothers and founders Dante and Jools, by the time of the show the Gun line up was expanded to a semi electric four piece, featuring drummer Joe Lazarus, with frontman Dante revisiting his past and doubling up on bass duties for the first time in some while. While Jools stuck to conventional acoustic guitar playing, Dave Aitken, their original guitarist who has just returned to the fold, was having fun trying to make his acoustic solos rock as hard as the originals.

They opened with a new song unfamiliar to me in ‘Backstreet Brothers’ while it was good to hear one of their lesser heralded gems in ‘Seems Like I’m Losing You’. However the run of glorious singles that is among the strongest among all their contemporaries in the late eighties and early nineties formed the cornerstone of the set: ‘Money (Everybody Loves Her)’, ‘Don’t Say Its Over’, ‘Taking On the World’, which was even more inspiring stripped back, ‘Word Up’ which saw a few people moving forward to dance, and ‘Inside Out’, complete with Jools taking a few of the vocals.

There was the odd unusual choice with a very impressive ‘Never Knew What I Had’, a song from their ‘Frantic’ album with the feel of the Stones in their country-rock phase, and the downbeat ‘Long Road’ but it stick fairly closely to a greatest hits set, right down to the two closers in ‘Steal Your Fire’, Dave even going down on his knee to play the solo exaggeratedly and ‘Shame on You’ with the last of many singalongs.

The one gripe was that the set was on the short side at an hour and ten minutes. While they whizzed through a dozen songs, with a few exceptions – shopping for codpieces before going on Top of the Pops to perform ‘Word Up’ ! – the song stories and anecdotes that acoustic shows lend themselves to were in short supply, though the Gizzi brothers joked it was because us southerners would find their heavy Glaswegian accent incomprehensible.

Nevertheless to see at such close quarters songs I’ve heard performed countless times and now stripped down to their essentials made for a memorable show.

Review and Photos by Andy Nathan

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